Technology

Australia’s largest Renewable Energy Zone (REZ) is set to be energised with the New South Wales Government announcing it will soon seek registrations of interest from solar, wind and energy storage project proponents keen to be part of the massive 8 GW New England REZ.

Korea Zinc Company Ltd., parent company of Townsville-based Sun Metals, has entered into a $17 million financing agreement with the 1,100km CopperString 2.0 transmission line project across North Queensland. The project, which received an $11 million boost from the Federal Government recently, would open up enormous tracts of land for the development of renewable projects and minerals.

Australian technology company Star Scientific has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Philippines’ Department of Energy in order to trace out the use of its game-changing HERO technology. The partnership could see Star Scientific transform every coal-fired power plant in the nation to green hydrogen while also utilising the technology to, among other things, provide clean, quick, desalinated water.

Six new arrays with a combined capacity of 120 kW will be installed on the International Space Station starting from this year. The panels will be brought to the station with the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft during three resupply missions. The installation of each solar array will require two spacewalks.

Of the myriad tensions upon the energy transition to renewables it is perhaps the ability of solar and energy storage to be distributed among the people that has threatened the powers that be most overtly. And so, in NSW’s northwest where the federal government has pushed through Santos’s Narrabri coal seam gas project, perhaps it is community green energy non-profit Geni.Energy that is best able to show just how unnecessary such a project is.

Two French companies have collaborated on the development of the Osmo-Watt system, which is powered by solar panels. They claim that the technology can produce up to 100 cubic meters of drinking water per day.

Enel X, a subsidiary of Italian utility company Enel, has won the Mission Critical Tech Innovation Award at the global Datacenter Dynamic Awards 2020 for its virtual power plant (VPP) grid support program in Australia.

Australian researchers have analysed different ways to improve the efficiency of PV-powered water electrolysis for hydrogen generation. They include the use of magnetic fields, light energy, ultrasonic fields, and pulsating electric fields. Energy costs remain prohibitive, but molecular movement and the redistribution of molecules in water during electrolysis could open a path to viability.

The Federal Government has added a new element to the National Electricity Market (NEM) equation by announcing it will provide up to $11 million to help progress the CopperString 2.0 transmission project in Queensland.

Chemical engineers at the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney have made a significant technological breakthrough in the development of green ammonia. The breakthrough could not only alter the global ammonia industry, but more easily use solar to produce green ammonia for export to countries like Japan and Germany instead of straight hydrogen.